Russia, US to continue to cooperate on International Space Station operations: NASA

Even though the Russian military action in Ukraine has heightened tensions between Moscow and the US, the two sides will continue to cooperate on the International Space Station (ISS) operations, NASA said. The US space agency has said that its joint operations with the Russian space agency Roscosmos will continue as usual. 

The International Space Station is the largest space station ever built and according to NASA, astronauts from 18 countries have visited it.

After Russia announced on Thursday that it was conducting a "military operation" in Ukraine and the West sanctioned it, scientists and astronomers were concerned about the impact on joint space exploration projects. 

However, a NASA spokesperson told the media that the two countries' space agencies would continue collaborating. "The International Space Station team is continuing to conduct research operations in low-Earth orbit in a safe manner," said a NASA spokesperson. The spokesperson also stated that cooperation on the ground would continue. Three Russian cosmonauts are already undergoing training at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. In February, two NASA astronauts completed their training in Russia.

NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei will return to Earth on March 30 aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov, two Russian cosmonauts, will accompany him. However, other players, such as the European Union and the United Kingdom, have threatened Russia with severe sanctions if the invasion of Ukraine is not immediately halted.

Russia and the US have often collaborated on multinational project previously. The International Space Station (ISS) was launched in 1988 as one of the most ambitious international collaborations ever attempted. It is a collaboration between the United States, Russia, Japan, Canada, and the European Space Agency. Astronauts from multiple nations stay on the ISS and carry out research missions together.

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• NASA
• Russia
• United States
• International Space Station
• Russia Ukraine crisis
• Ukraine crisis
• Vladimir Putin